When I first decided to create a live action book trailer for my accidental novel Brigitta of the White Forest, it was at a time when book trailers were still pretty basic. Most were made by “panning” over still shots and overlaying words on the stills or inserting them as separate title cards. There are websites you can use to put these together with stock images and stock music.

Because I come from a film background and love to direct, when I think of “trailers” I think in movie trailers. I knew right away that if I were going to do a book trailer it would be live action or not at all.

Since the inception of the idea, I have found more and more publishing companies coming out with book trailers with much higher production value. The bar has definitely been raised.

This one cracked me up:

This is by far one of the most interesting book trailers I’ve seen:

For those self-published or small press published authors, it might seem like you can’t compete with the flashy new trailers larger publishing companies are putting out. But really, you can give something higher production value with little extra cost. Having little money is not a barrier, it simply means it’s time to get creative!

Here’s a very simple book trailer that I think still packs a punch:

And this very intriguing video that chronicles the making of the cover for the steampunk novel Blameless isn’t really that complicated at all. It’s basically time-lapsed stills of photoshop pages and some haunting music:

We just wrapped production on our trailer and will reveal it as soon as it’s ready.

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a teaser we threw together before my tour:

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Graphic Creds

I believe in credit where credit is due. Every image on my blog is either credited or linked to its source (unless it's my own image, of course). If you find any uncredited or unlinked images, please let me know.

photo by Cory Permack

Contact Danika

To contact Danika about speaking engagements, to say hello, or if you have a photo of a sad monkey for her (or a sad monkey-robot), please write to her at info (at) danikadinsmore (dot) com.